by M. J. Scott
When it grew fully dark, I shadowed fully. That way I actually had a chance of seeing Lucius coming.
The hours seemed endless as I fought both my fear and the need. I was near the edge of my limits. I almost welcomed the idea of death.
At least then I wouldn’t be scared anymore. Nor would I hurt.
The cathedral bell tolled midnight, then one, then two. Still nothing.
I paced around the room, so I wouldn’t sleep
That would be a quick ticket to death.
No, not death. Merely a return to slavery. Lucius didn’t want me dead. He wanted my blood. Though I was sure he had ways of keeping me alive that would make me wish I were dead before very long.
Wraiths live long lives. Not near immortal like the Fae but long enough. No doubt it would feel like an eternity of living hell if Lucius got his hands on me again.
I stared out the window, at the darkened grounds of the Brother House, wondering if he was lying in wait somewhere out there, waiting for his moment.
“Thinking of me?”
I whirled as Lucius stepped through the wall.
He was shadowed, as I was. I stepped backward, angling myself toward the door.
“Going to run again, shadow? Go on. You know how I enjoy the hunt.”
I wanted to but that wasn’t the plan. I steeled myself. “No. No, I’m not running.”
“No?” He tilted his head. “Have you seen reason, then? After your . . . departure.”
“You took me by surprise,” I said, stalling.
“You ran. You ran straight back to the humans.” His voice was a low snarl. I was glad that I couldn’t see any color in his eyes. No doubt they would burn scarlet.
There was no point lying. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“So you have changed your mind? You would come back to me? We could stand together.”
“With you drinking my blood to give you . . .” I spread my hand, unable to think of a better way to describe his ability than “abomination.” “This.”
“Yes. This. Isn’t it delightful?” His smile was anything but. “Entirely unexpected. But you could have my blood too. You know you want it. I can feel it in you from here. You hunger, shadow.”
I did. Hungered more now that I could smell him. It made me dizzy with want, but I fought for control, trying to remember. I was supposed to stall him. Not just stall him but get him to leave the shadow and distract him. Until Simon could come and bring the sunlight.
And I suddenly had a very clear vision of just how I could do that.
I licked my lips, dizzy from more than just the need now. Fear had turned my spine to ice. Lucius would be able to smell it, but that didn’t matter. He was used to me being afraid. Better that he believed I still was. “Yes. Yes, my Lord. I hunger.”
His mouth curved with vicious satisfaction. “I thought so. So you have seen sense?”
“What would you give me, if I came back to you?”
He took a step toward me, eyes glittering darkly. “Give you? You are mine, shadow. Why should I give you anything ?”
I let myself grow a little more solid, drew my dagger. He paused. He had touched me in the shadow. Was he wondering if I could do the same? He knew very well the damage my blade could do.
“You want something from me. We could come to terms. You wish to take this City. I can help you with that too. But I want . . . more freedom. After all, the humans have offered me anything I want.” I prayed he would believe me. Coming as he did from the Night World, where nothing is free, surely it was plausible that I would try to drive an advantage from this situation.
“They do not value you as I do, shadow. They cannot give you what you need.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit suddenly. The smell of his blood welled around me.
Irresistible.
Almost.
“No, my Lord.” I made myself drop my gaze, let the dagger fall to my side, nerves shrieking at me as I gave him an opening.
He moved swiftly. Too swiftly. Suddenly he was beside me. But I realized I couldn’t feel any real sense of his body, not like I had felt when he’d chased me through the warrens. He was insubstantial now. Not like me. More like a ghost. So the effects of my blood were fading. Which had to mean he was even more desperate for it.
I schooled my face to stillness. I couldn’t smile. Couldn’t let him see anything but what he wanted to see. The blood scent grew stronger and I bit my lip, feeling my grip on my senses loosen. Soon I would have to leave the shadow. I needed some other sensation to fight the need. In my halfsolid state, I could dig my nails into my palm but I barely registered the sensation.
“I have missed you, shadow,” he said softly. His voice was right beside my ear though I felt no breath. “Did you miss me?”
I nodded slowly, tilting my head ever so slightly so my hair fell back off my neck, baring my throat. Willing him to take the bait. “Yes, my Lord.” I let my voice turn longing. “I . . . I have need, my Lord. Do you not . . . hunger . . . too?”
“Yes.” It was just a whisper. The sound of a voice calling from beyond the grave.
“Then—” I let my voice drop too. “Please, my Lord.”
His hand drifted across my neck. I felt it then, like the brush of a cobweb. “You want me?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
He lifted a hand, moved it toward me, but it passed through me. He snarled softly. “We cannot touch here.”
“No.”
“Then it’s the same for you?”
“Yes, my Lord. I always have to leave this place to touch another.” I wasn’t going to remind him that he’d touched me before in the shadow. That he was weakened. “That’s why I could never kill like this.”
He seemed to be considering. I looked up at him, made myself part my lips and lick them. “Please. The need . . . it is very bad.”
Lady, let him believe me. “Please, my Lord.” Did I sound yearning or terrified? I didn’t know.
“You’ll come back with me?”
“Yes. When you leave, I’ll come with you.” Hopefully because I’d be carrying a bag full of his ashes.
“Put down your weapons,” he said.
Not completely fooled, then. I pulled the dagger and the stilettos from their sheaths, dropped them on the floor.
“Move back against the wall. Kneel. Put your hands behind you back. Then leave the shadow.”
In other words, make myself completely vulnerable. Prove I was trustworthy.
It took every effort of will I could muster, but I obeyed. I shook as I knelt there. Hoping like hell the depth of my fear wouldn’t give me away. Though Lucius liked fear. It might add to the temptation.
I tried to remember how to breathe as I waited, unable to tell where he was or what he might be doing. Was he going to take the bait?
Or had I just turned myself into the perfect target? I strained with all my senses, but until he chose to leave the shadow I was as blind as Atherton.
He could pick up my dagger and cut my throat with it before I’d have time to react or call for help.
I had to rely on the fact that he needed me. Hope that Atherton had been right about the possibility of a Blood becoming addicted to one person’s blood to make him hungry for me. Hope my blood was doubly attractive because of the power it brought.
Pray to whatever gods might listen to one such as me for protection. Pray that Simon wouldn’t leave me to my fate. I had a charm in the pocket of my trousers to call him, but I couldn’t touch it now.
“My Lord?” I said softly after an endless minute or so. “Do not tease me, please. I . . . cannot wait much longer.”
He appeared before me. Holding my dagger in one hand. My teeth clamped down on my instinct to cry out. I needed him, as he was, solid and solidly distracted, before I could summon help. It would take Simon time to light the lamps. Only a few seconds, true, but that was more than enough time for a vampire to react unless he was lost in something.
That something would have
to be me.
Lucius drew the blade up closer to my face, trailed its point against my skin. Not quite hard enough to draw blood.
“You left me, shadow,” he said softly.
We could be heard now if he spoke too loudly. I hoped that Simon couldn’t hear this. What would he think? That I was exactly as he had presumed me to be? A Nightseeking whore about to get what she wanted.
Would he believe the lies?
And if he did, would he still come when I needed him?
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Foolish of you.”
I nodded. “Yes. Will you forgive me?” I kept my eyes on his face, hoping I looked suitably terrified and penitent. It wasn’t hard to summon the emotion. I was terrified.
He could kill me here and now and vanish into the night before the humans could react.
“Perhaps.” He smiled and I saw his fangs gleam in the moonlight. “If you prove yourself suitably remorseful.”
I stared up at him. I had no words to describe my remorse. Remorse that I’d ever been his creature. Remorse that I was in this position. I regretted many things. But I didn’t regret what I was trying to do now. To succeed I needed him to believe me.
“I am sorry, my Lord.” I took a breath, then leaned into the blade, letting it slice my face.
Letting the blood spill.
I heard his sucked-in breath as the smell of blood suddenly rose between us. Fresh and rich and inviting. At least I hoped it smelled good to him. To me it just smelled like blood. Like the aftermath of every beating I’d ever taken. Every wound I’d ever sustained.
The blood was wet and hot against my cheek, like the tears I couldn’t shed. “Aren’t you hungry too, my Lord?”
I heard his heart skip out of its calm Blood rhythm. He was hungry. Hungry for me.
I leaned my head, turning the cut side of my face up as I stretched out my neck. “Your blood will taste sweeter to me if I know that you have been satisfied first.”
He stared down at me. “Ask nicely.”
“Please. Please . . . Lucius.” His name was bitter on my tongue. “Don’t make me wait.”
It happened faster than a snake strike. One minute I was kneeling and bleeding; the next he’d lifted me to my feet, pressing me back against the wall and plunged his fangs into my neck.
It hurt.
Hurt like hell.
But I made myself gasp in delight. Made myself relax into him, hold him close. Forced my revulsion and panic away as I tried to listen to his heartbeat and read him.
Not yet.
Not yet. Not now while his muscles were still tensed.
I pulled his head closer to my neck. More. He needed to take more.
But not too much.
My own heartbeat seemed to pound through me as the blood flowed out of me. Too much and I would faint or die or forget what I had to do.
But then I heard it. The same unified rhythm of his heart beating with mine and the softening of his muscles. Just like it had been in Halcyon. I had him. Fully in the grip of my blood.
Mindless.
Careless.
I felt the seductive pull of that doubled beat, the need to yield filling me as his scent surrounded me. I resisted long enough to remember the charm. I let my hand drift down. Found it as I felt my resolve shatter. Touched it gently, the metal warm against my cold skin. I spoke a single word. “Simon.”
To my ears it sounded weak and barely audible. But apparently it was enough.
The door flew open and the lamps blazed to life around me, the room suddenly bright as midday.
Lucius stumbled back from me, fangs rending as he retreated. Wetness gushed down my neck. I clapped my hand to the wound. Blood pulsed against my skin. Too much blood.
I couldn’t move, everything suddenly swimming before me. But I could watch.
Watch as Lucius swung toward Simon, shrieking against the light.
His hand connected and Simon was forced back, but he didn’t falter. He surged forward, wielding a sword as large as Guy’s again as Lucius drew a knife from beneath his jacket and attacked desperately, trying to reach the door and get away from the lamps.
I knew how much each blow Lucius landed had to hurt him. I knew exactly how strong the vampire was, how fast, even as his skin started to smoke and blister. A lesser man would be crushed, would flee.
Not Simon.
He stood against him, seeming to blaze almost as brightly as the sun he called.
And then the room went dark. Simon had let go of his power.
“No!” I screamed, I stumbled forward but my legs crumpled beneath me and I hit the floor, head spinning. More blood poured between my fingers.
I watched them, figures of gray and black, limned in moonlight that glinted off blood-damped blades.
“You want her,” Simon said in a voice like granite. “Then you have to come through me.”
Lucius hissed, fangs bared. “As you wish, sunmage.”
They came together in a clash of metal and I screamed at Simon to use the sun. He couldn’t beat a vampire. No one could. He would die.
But he didn’t.
No, instead, he fought like a man possessed, blade arcing through the darkness, faster almost than I could see, face full of a terrible intent. His blade connected with Lucius’ arm and this time it was Lucius who screamed, not me.
Screamed, then attacked, pressing Simon back with a flurry of strikes from the cruel hook of his knife.
I could smell more than Lucius’ blood now. Human blood too. He was hurt.
I tried to drag myself upright, terror closing my throat, but the room swam around me.
“Think of me, sunmage,” Lucius snarled as he pressed another attack. “Think of my fangs in her neck. Maybe that will keep you warm in hell.”
Simon didn’t reply. Just raised his sword again. For a moment I thought he looked to me, but maybe that was just a trick of the moonlight. Then he moved again, leaping toward and past Lucius, and then, before Lucius could turn, whirling to strike again.
He found his target.
His sword cut through Lucius with one blow. Lucius froze, then fell.
The room burst into light again and I saw the shocked, frozen expression on Lucius’ face before it burst into flame.
The fire was bright white, dazzling, as was the answering burst as his body followed suit.
Burning.
Ashes.
Gone.
Blood still gushed against my hand, running hotly down my neck. The stink of burning flesh filled my nose, and the vision of Simon’s face, half blackened but fiercely victorious, cut a path through the blackness as he bent over me. “Simon,” I said one last time before letting the dark take me.
Chapter Twenty-two
“Are you going to sit outside this door forever?” Bryony paused by the door to Lily’s room, looking down at me with an amused expression.
I shrugged, keeping my eyes on the door.
For nearly a day, her life had hung in the balance. She had lost far too much blood.
Not that I had been able to help her that first day. Bryony had knocked me out so that they could work on me. Once I’d awoken, I’d taken up my station here. But I hadn’t been able to cross the threshold. It had been nearly three days.
“She’s fully recovered,” Bryony said. “You can go inside.”
“I thought you’d be more disappointed about that,” I managed.
She ignored my gibe. “How long are you going to keep pretending?”
“Pretending what?”
“That you don’t care? You may as well give up, Simon. You’re in love with her.”
“I—”
“You’ve hardly left this door, except when Guy’s threatened you with bodily harm if you don’t sleep or when Atherton’s wanted you, for three days now. You snap and snarl at everyone who is caring for her. I think everyone would be happier if you would just go in and see her.”
I shook my head, ignoring her in turn. �
�Any word of Chrysanthe?”
Bryony’s lips thinned. “No. She has not been seen in Summerdale or the City. I fear she may be dead.”
Gods and suns. Another casualty of this mess. And now we might never know if she really was Lucius’ spy.
Bryony nodded, as if she could hear what I was thinking. Then her expression brightened. “Oh. I nearly forgot. I had a message from the Speaker this morning.”
My gut tightened. There had been turmoil in the City since Lucius had . . . vanished. I’d been waiting for the Fae to step in, to come seeking whoever might be responsible in order to restore order. “Oh?”
“Yes. He said that the Fae would not be pursuing the matter of Lucius’ disappearance. He said that no one could offer him any proof of what had happened and therefore he could not act. He expressly mentioned that I should tell you that.”
A chill crept down my spine. A message or a warning? I had no way of knowing.
Bryony smiled. “Everything is as it should be.” Then her smile grew crooked. She looked like she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying, but her eyes were gentle as she leaned down and patted my arm. “You saved this one, m’hala. You won. Lucius is dead. You got to kill him. She almost died to trap him so you could do just that. It’s time you forgave her for whatever it is you think she did to you.”
Then she turned and went into Lily’s room.
I leaned my head my head back against the wall. It wasn’t so simple as that. I stared into a space a moment longer, then, unable to stay still any longer, heaved myself to my feet and headed for the roof.
My breath was coming hard when I stepped out into the sunlight, but I ignored the physical discomfort. How my body felt didn’t matter.
What mattered was the feeling that I carried something dark within myself now, something no amount of sunlight seemed to ease.
I had killed deliberately. Had taken up my sword and fought.
Ended a life.
Had felt the savage triumph of it as I had done so.